Standard Eight candidates sit for the mathematics paper on the start of
KCPE exams on October 31, 2017. PHOTO | ONDARI OGEGA | NATION MEDIA
GROUP
This
should jolt us to the reality that we may have placed the mean score on
a pedestal over the years while overlooking how it may have been
attained.
But is a mean score the best criterion to rank a school or candidate? What, really, is a ‘good grade’ or ‘good school’?
RESULTS
Exam
results are usually ranked from the highest- to lowest-scoring
candidate but an average score may be measured as a mean, median or
mode. The mean score is obtained after the total number of marks scored
by all the students are put together and divided by the total number of
candidates.
The mean is easily manipulable by tipping
the scale either way. To achieve a high mean score, some schools take
advantage of the variability of the mean as a measure of central
tendency to have as many candidates as possible passing as few or none
fail.
In this scenario, the most common score, which is
the mode, is also as high as the mean because majority of the students
will have done well and the middle student, who scores the median score,
will also have as high a score.
For decades, national
schools commonly referred to as the “academic giants” have selected
students with the highest CPE or KCPE scores in their districts and set a
high cut-off point for admission limited by the number of places
available.
FORM ONE
So, their mean scores should not be compared with other schools admitting students who scored less marks.
Some
principals in the ‘good’ schools have gradually segregated high scorers
into an alpha or elite class, sometimes on entry at kindergarten or
Form One.
These would get preferential attention by the teachers while they ignore the other, ‘average’ students.
The
ostensibly high sense of achievement can only be authenticated by
delinking pupils’ KCPE mean scores with their admitting schools during
Form One selection and doing away with the school categorisation as
“national” or “county” and classify them as boarding, day or special,
regardless of State support.
Let all KCPE candidates
be admitted to the schools near their homes to lighten households’
education cost burden and dampen the motivation to cheat in exams while
allowing county administrations to objectively improve the quality of
education in their schools.
We need to reflect on the
hidden effect of this mean score mania on our candidates in the next
three decades, not on schools or head teachers.
CANDIDATES
Most
candidates may suffer depression or loss of self-esteem when the
results are released publicly and sensationalised by the media, creating
a sense of hopelessness that may trigger high-risk behaviour.
Parents
and teachers associations should objectively review the trend in their
school’s exam results over the past few decades. If the middle (median)
and mean (average) score differ, then the results may not be a true
reflection of the school’s performance.
The results
should confirm a normal distribution. It is expected that fewer
candidates attain very high scores with a similar proportion on the
other extreme.
The majority will attain average scores.
If
the marks scored by the middle candidate on each list is close to or
the same as the mean score for each year, and if there are as few
students scoring extremely high scores as have scored extremely lowly,
then the results are authentic.
Scoring a school based
on the median would be the true reflection of the efforts of the
candidates and how effectively the teachers have delivered the
curriculum for that level.
Dr Mwendwa, a clinical
epidemiologist, is a lecturer in the Department of Medical Physiology at
the University of Nairobi and the interim vice-chair, the Public Health
Society of Kenya (PHSK). tmwendwa@uonbi.ac.ke.
SOURCE
SOURCE
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